So, as of this week, I'll officially be entering my third week of being full-time, (at about the 14.5-month mark on HRT when I made it official,) and I thought I'd share some thoughts about how the whole experience has been so far.
JOB INTERVIEWS:After getting my official "declaration of gender change" letter from my therapist on Wednesday April 2nd, I pretty much immediately had to throw myself head-first into preparing for job interviews. (I'm still currently unemployed, and searching for jobs. And basically the thing that spurned me to officially go full-time was that after I was fired (for preparing to transition on the job no less,) I realized I couldn't emotionally handle starting yet another job still in hiding, and go through all of that fear and uncertainty about when the right time to transition was. I just couldn't spend months and months more fighting against myself, feeling like my true self was being unrecognized, waiting and wondering. So although I didn't completely feel ready, I knew I had to do it.)
Basically, at the point of going full-time, I hadn't been gendered male for several weeks, but I was still lacking self-confidence in terms of passability. My therapist was kind of "ehhh... people will probably be able to tell" in regards to whether I could interview without worrying about being blatantly-trans.
I have indeed been to a couple of job interviews now, though. And my fears have been greatly eased. So far, I've had no problems whatsoever. The only problem was basically that I had to ask them whether I could use my chosen name on the application or not. (A problem which will be remedied next month when I get my name-change.) In the interviews, I didn't get any standoffish treatment at all, people treated me just like they would any candidate, and many times I got that "talking down to you" kind of tone that some professional guys use when talking to women. So whether they could tell if I was trans or not, I got treated like I was any other female candidate. (My roommate did tell me, though, when we were at a job fair together, that I really have a problem with undervaluing myself. I was apologizing too much, and I had a bit of an internalized notion of "well, I'm probably not what they're looking for." So frankly, I think that's my biggest problem. Not the fact that I'm trans, but rather that I need to get some self-confidence, and sell myself and my abilities to the interviewers.)
INTERNAL STRUGGLE:The biggest change is the lack of internal war. Pre-full-time, I was constantly beating myself up about "Am I EVER going to make it?" And I'd spend so much time and so much mental energy worrying. Where now, I don't have to worry anymore. I'm there. And I've discovered more and more that I'm just being treated like any other woman would be treated, despite the fact that I'm 6'2" and overweight and to my own estimation only moderately-passable. (Without the wig on at least...) So it has given me the freedom to chill, to just go out and live my life, with the satisfaction of knowing that transition is no longer this distant dream in the future that I'm afraid I'll never make it to.
Now the internal struggle switches to accepting this. I've spent SO long in this between-genders "in transition" state that it's often very hard to process that I really am legally female now. I wake up, and frankly I kind of forget "oh yeah, I'm a girl now." Because really, nothing feels different. I'm still waking up in the same clothes, the same body, the same bed, going out in the same clothes that I've been going out in for months, and nothing really feels different. The only thing that's changed is that I'm legally female now, and that I'm interviewing for jobs as a girl rather than going to work every day as a guy. And because I'm still unemployed, and thus spend most of my time sitting around the house on my computer, there's a lot of times where I really have a hard time internalizing that I'm there. That probably won't hit me until I actually start a new job as a girl, which hopefully will be soon.
SOCIAL / FAMILY:A HUGE difference is the social difference. A week after full-time became official, I visited my mom and my uncle. And this was the first time that they'd ever seen me in "girl mode" for more than a few minutes. And frankly, as horrible as this sounds, social interactions with my family seriously used to drain me. Between my mom constantly taking pictures, and my uncle lecturing me with "well you're a young man now" speeches, and just in general being treated like a guy, it was hard to not feel exhausted by the end of the day, and needing to get away from it all to reset. So I was REALLY surprised to find that this time, I actually had... gulp... FUN.
It's SO gratifying to have your family treat you how you've always wished you could be. To be able to be open about yourself, to be able to joke about your new gender assignment, to be able to bother Mom about how she needs to start lecturing me on cleanliness and telling me "how do you expect to get a husband if you're not clean?" and other stuff like that. I actually had a good time joking with them. I felt free! Plus I finally got to go clothes-shopping with them as a girl. And unlike as a guy, where my default response was just "eh... I guess I like it..." or "yeah, if that's what you think I need," this time I had a BLAST! I got to try on clothes that I was actually interested in, got to see how all of these different cuts and patterns fit on me, and I was actually happy to come out and get their opinion on how I looked in them. I seriously just came alive socially in a way that I never was with them before.
And I'm not the only one who saw this. Mom herself said "You know, I think I like you better as a girl. You're so much happier."
And that was another wonderful thing. I got to hear mom call me her "daughter," and my uncle call me his "niece" for the first time ever. And yeah, the two of them had a lot of trouble with names and pronouns. Especially when reminiscing was involved. But they were trying. And that's more than I could ever have hoped for.
And it's the same way with my friends now. Whenever I'm out with friends now, I'm a girl. And I'm treated like one. And I get to hear people using my preferred name and pronouns, and social interactions of all kinds just fill me with energy and happiness now, where before they always drained me because being treated like a guy socially just constantly reminded me of things I hated about myself.
NAME / SELF-ACCEPTANCE:I'm going to admit, when I first went full-time, I had a really hard time accepting it myself. I went through a lengthy period of "Oh my God, am I really going to do this?" And freaking out because I was so afraid that I was making a mistake, so afraid that I was sabotaging my life. And whenever I thought that I was legally female, and that my legal name really was about to become "Caroline Elizabeth D******," I felt REALLY bad about it. I felt inadequate. I felt like "I'm not really a girl, I'm just some wannabe guy who wishes that he was a girl," and I just had some really bad feelings of inadequacy to deal with.
To some extent, this still hasn't changed. There's a lot of times where I still feel like I'm not really a girl, especially when I'm looking in the mirror at myself before getting dressed and before doing my hair. What finally helped me cope with this, though, was when I realized how I was starting to feel when I was called my old name and my old pronouns. Yesterday, I got misgendered for the first time since early March. And it made me feel like CRAP. And then later in the same day, my mom slipped up and called me "Charlie." And I realized, I don't identify with that name or those pronouns anymore.
After three whole weeks of hearing nothing but "she," nothing but "Carrie," it gets harder and harder to hear my old name and to hear incorrect pronouns. So even though my own mind hasn't accepted it in my own internal dialog, likewise, it's slowly been carving out a new identity for itself, changing back there where I can't even see it, such that as time goes on and I settle into this new role more and more, I can't imagine being anyone else.
So now I'm no longer looking at the impending name-change with the same fear as before, the same sense of "Oh my God, am I REALLY going to do this?" Now I'm recognizing, it's my key to freedom. Because the only problem I've ever had with job interviews involved my legal name. So once that legal name change goes through the courts (hopefully on May 22,) not a single person will ever have to know about my past again. I'll be free to be myself, and just go in for job interviews as a girl and have the legal documents to back me up. So where I was once scared of it, now it can't come soon enough.
OVERALL MENTAL:Frankly, my life has become pretty boring all of a sudden. Before going full-time, I'd spent the last 14 months doing nothing but obsessing about transition... constantly worrying about whether I was going to make it or not, constantly worrying about this thing or that thing, constantly having to re-check my own convictions to make sure that I really was sure about this, constantly having to deal with that feeling of being invalidated and trying to make myself feel better. And before that, I'd spent the prior 13 years straight being completely mentally consumed by gender dysphoria, and unable to focus on anything but how much better my life would be if I was a girl.
Now, for the first time since I was 14 years old, my mind is quiet again. I don't have to constantly think about gender anymore. I do worry about it still when I'm going outside, and do still somewhat think about my passability, and my hair growth prospects, but for the most part it's just not something that dominates my life anymore. On most afternoons, if I'm not doing anything, I'm actually pretty bored. And I start wondering what my friends are doing, and daydreaming about what social events I could go to, and posting on this site to keep my time occupied. It's actually kind of weird. I never really needed entertainment before, because I was constantly obssessed wither either gender, or some obsessive project meant to keep my mind off gender. I could always just get myself lost in thought, and spend the entire night thinking away. Where now I can't. I'm just bored when there's nothing going on. And dear God... I'd never been bored in my entire life before. It's kind of scary.
I'm wondering what I want to do for a career... I'm thinking of maybe going back to school, getting my teaching degree, or at least working on the various Youtube series that I've been meaning to get started on for a long time now. And it's such an amazing feeling! I actually feel normal! It's not like I'm constantly feeling good, but the point is, I'm not constantly feeling bad anymore, and not constantly distracted by and hung up with my own problems. I actually finally have the mental capacity to be bored, and think about other things, just like a normal person. And ultimately, that's all I could ask for from transition. No, I don't feel much better when I'm just in my usual "default state," which has always been happiness. But now I don't have to deal with constantly having that default state of happiness interrupted by dysphoria on a constant basis. And there's a heck of a lot of moments of "gender euphoria," where I just get to squee with delight because I'm enjoying my femininity so much. And that's the big difference. Gender-specific moments add to my happiness now rather than taking it away.
Frankly, if I could get a job right now, IMO everything would be pretty much perfect. I'd finally be normal. Not necessarily happy all the time. Because nobody is ever happy all the time. But normal. Finally. Just as able to enjoy life and be happy, sad, excited, bored, miserable or elated, as anyone else. And that's all I've ever wanted.
